“This is about millions of American children who have no job, who have no possibility of getting a job, and what to do with them. There is no plan. This is a national crisis that we’ve got to get serious about, and we need some real leadership in this nation on that issue. The truth of it is, this is neither a Democratic nor a Republican issue. This is an American issue.”

– Geoffrey Canada, founder and President of the Harlem Children’s Zone

Block by block. Child by child. That’s how Geoffrey Canada set out to save at-risk children in some of the most devastated neighborhoods of Central Harlem.

In 1970, he founded the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) – a non-profit organization that’s been called one of the most ambitious social experiments of the century. Canada, 56, says his goal is to offer these children all they need to succeed in an ever-changing, competitive world. It’s a lofty dream, but one Canada has devoted his life to – and one he says the public school system has so far been unable to accomplish.

“We should not have a system where, if you’re born in one place, simply because people there are poor, you get an inferior education,” he says. “That’s not the kind of America I think that the framers of our Constitution envisioned.”

Canada himself could have been a victim of this kind of America. He grew up in a poor, violent neighborhood of the South Bronx, living in a tenement home with his single mother and three siblings. His mother worked several jobs to put food on the table. She also impressed upon her kids the importance of education.

Canada listened. He was a driven student, and worked his way through Bowdoin College, then the Harvard School of Education. When he came home to the Bronx, he says he was stunned to see that in all the years of his absence, little had changed.

“If you happen to grow up like I did, and you went to a school that failed 70 to 80 percent of its kids, and you go back 50 years later, and see the same failure rate, you say to yourself, how could this be?” he says.

That’s when his work as a child advocate began. In 1983 he joined a nonprofit in Harlem called the Rheedlen Centers, and in 1998 he became its President. Instead of targeting the Center’s work on a handful of specific issues, Canada decided to cast its net wider to several blocks of Central Harlem, an area in which he promised to offer services to every child.

Today, the Harlem Children’s Zone operates on a fiscal budget of approximately $58 million – some of it donated by private sources, some corporations and a small portion from the Federal Government. True to Canada’s goal, the organization serves more than 10,000 at-risk kids – providing them with a network of social services and a high-quality education – all at no cost.

What’s more, Canada says, the Harlem Children’s Zone has diminished the societal costs of failing to provide these kids with sufficient education and healthcare.

“When you send a kid to jail for ten years, they do not come out prepared to get a job, to pay their taxes, to raise their families. You have created a crippled citizen, who is going to be on the public payroll for almost the rest of his or her life,” he explains. “The antidote to having kids in jail, is to get them into college.”

Canada also believes in intervening early through what’s called the Baby College. The workshop invites new parents to learn how to raise their kids to ensure a good education. To minimize the chances that his kids will fall victim to street crime, he keeps them off the streets – requiring after-school activities and longer school years.

So far, it seems, the formula is working – with approximately 95 percent of the kids who attend going on to college. And other cities, including Baltimore, are taking note – deliberating copycat programs in their own at-risk neighborhoods.

What will it take for more of America’s schools to produce these kids of results? According to Canada, success depends on accountability.

“No one has taken real accountability and said, ‘I’m going to fix this problem. I’m going to put politics aside, and I’m going to do what’s right for America’s children,” he says. “That’s the kind of leadership I think this nation needs.”

Foxfire Center for Student Success – In East Central Ohio, Zanesville is representative of the many designated economically transitional and at-risk towns in the Appalachian Region. Unemployment remains above state and national rates, 8.1 percent, and the average annual household income is $27,900.

Foxfire alternative school was started in 2000 by the assistant principal and a group of teachers at Maysville High School in Maysville School District. The program was designed for those students at Maysville that were struggling to fit into the traditional school environment. “These kids weren’t coming to school because they had to work to support their families, but they’re still good students,” said Maysville superintendent Monte Bainter. “We had all kinds of programs established for kids but certain students never fit into them.”

Starting as an offshoot of Maysville High School, students were offered evening classes instead of suspension or after school programs. That first year, 12 students participated. This year’s enrollment is at 207 students aged 16-22. Students apply, or are referred, to Foxfire from the surrounding Zanesville area. The targeted students include working teenagers, dropouts, would-be dropouts, pregnant teens and teen parents (2007-2008 student population included 30 teen pregnancies and 92 with children), and youth on probation or coming from the juvenile justice system. Students come to class in shifts, with the option of choosing from three four-hour slots in the day. They are required to either work or participate in community service for 15 hours per week.

The school’s mission stems from a Core Values system: Caring, Honesty, Teamwork, Discipline, Character, Work Ethic, Accountability, Commitment, Respect and Loyalty. “Having an environment where we teach and reciprocate respect, accountability and caring with the students has had the biggest impact,” said teacher and Director of Student Services, Austin Lewellen.

In part of creating a supportive and encouraging environment, the curriculum is a Project Based Learning program. The students enter the program at different levels of learning and different credit needs for high school completion. With project based learning, each student works at her own pace. Each project is set to fulfill state standards based on the Ohio Graduation Test (OGT), so after a student has completed it she receives a grade and earns the appropriate number of credits.

Cornelius Murphy, 19, a former Foxfire student, said the project based learning is beneficial to kids’ learning process. “For English I took the Tupac Shakur project class. Having class projects on subjects you’re familiar with makes the kids interested in doing the research, following through, and writing on the topic. With the hands-on interactive learning projects, a lot of us need that kind of teaching to learn.” Murphy enrolled himself at the school when he was 17, and at a 9th grade reading and math level. He feels the flexible school schedule was vital to his graduation. “Foxfire works because it’s for kids who don’t do well in a regular environment, for whatever reason. It gives students a chance to work, pay bills, pay for childcare, and learn a trade to help after graduation.”

Since graduating last year, Murphy has been working as a State Nursing Assistant and plans to attend a community college for a degree in Radiology. He received his SNA certificate with help from Foxfire career counselors and teachers. “If I hadn’t gone to Foxfire, I’d still be at Zanesville High trying to get my diploma,” said Murphy. “I would never drop out. But, it would take me a lot longer to finish all the credits and graduate.”

The school has a comprehensive Career-Based Initiative in which the students are introduced to varied fields of work and college opportunities. Each student is required to make three college visits with a staff member. Also, each student must choose a field of interest, which may include the military, and is required to do a job shadowing in that field for a minimum of sixty hours during the semester.

In an area with few choices or jobs, many youth choose to go into construction because of its higher pay, or join the military. To help encourage young people into the workforce and post-secondary training, Foxfire’s Youth Build Grant enrolls at-risk/dropout youth at a local technical school to receive training in order to build government housing within the county. The students are paid minimum wage during their training and in the end can earn up to $17 per hour.

Principal Todd Whiteman has worked diligently to make an environment where students can accelerate and feel like they belong to something. “The biggest challenge is to take these kids and get them well so they can learn. A lot of them have poor health, they come from environments where violence, drugs, alcohol and sex are prominent,” said Whiteman. “Ninety-percent of the kids are referred from the juvenile delinquency courts. But our hands-on learning curriculum makes the academic skills relevant and interesting to them.”

Whiteman’s Core Value system is also implemented with the teachers. In just a few years, Foxfire’s retention rate rose from 40 percent to 100 percent. The staff meets every morning for thirty minutes to assess and collaborate on curriculum mapping. “There has been a noticeable rise in respect and support among the teachers,” Whiteman said. “Wellness is an important factor in our school. The teachers need to care about themselves and the students.”

Samantha Fleming enrolled at Foxfire when she was 16, pregnant, and with only 7 high school credits. At the time she was enrolled at a vocational school but never went because of bad morning sickness. In just one year she completed 15 additional credits, passed the Ohio Graduation Test, and graduated high school last May. “I would have dropped out if it wasn’t for Foxfire,” said Fleming. “The teachers treat us as equals and with encouragement. Teachers would send cards in the mail saying ‘Sam, you’re doing a great job.’ It was always a constructive and positive environment.”

A crucial benefit to students is the Care Team initiative implemented by Superintendent Bainter. The Care Team is a collaborative of representatives from schools, mental, physical and behavioral health, child protection, juvenile court, law enforcement and child development. Foxfire has a full-time social worker and nurse on staff, as well as a part-time drug and alcohol counselor. “The Care Team initiative flags kids at the elementary age,” said Bainter. “At the beginning of each school year every staff person picks a group of kids to build a connection with. Connecting with kids is positive for the kids and for the adults. If kids think you care about them, they’ll work hard to prove successful to you and to themselves.”

Samantha Fleming took advantage of, and was grateful for, the Care Team presence. “Every Friday we had the Parenting Class. We’d meet, pregnant or teen parents, and talk about pregnancy, labor, parenting, physical and emotional needs,” said Fleming. During the school year, Samantha worked part-time at her mother’s tanning salon. This fall she plans on studying Nursing or Cosmetology at nearby Zane State College.

One of the biggest challenges of many schools is meeting state requirements and assessments. But Foxfire’s system of teaching, learning and caring has helped overcome that challenge. In just two years the number of students that passed the state 10th grade reading proficiency exams rose from 36.4 percent to 75 percent. Each tested area for the OGT increased by 60 percent -242 percent. The school was recently deemed as Best Practice and model for alternative schools by the Ohio Department of Education. It also met all requirements for the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in the state’s annual report card. And the class of 2007 had a remarkable 97.3 percent graduation rate, outpacing the state average of 86.9 percent.

After 13 years of classroom experience, fourth-grade language arts teacher Nancy Johnson – featured in “WHERE WE STAND” – thought she knew pretty much everything about strategies for good teaching. That was before her school, Pleasant Hill Academy in Cincinnati, introduced TAP – Teacher Advancement Program.

A year into TAP, Johnson says she’s built more confidence in the classroom, and is better at communicating critical skills to her students. “Their thinking has improved so much because I know what I need to do in order to get them there. And before, I really didn’t know,” she said.

Research has shown that good teachers are the most important school-related factor for student learning and success – but to date, the U.S. has fallen short when it comes to recruiting and supporting good teachers. In an average school year, approximately 1,000 teachers quit each work day, and another 1,000 move from one school to another. Of these teachers, 56 percent leave because of job dissatisfaction and a desire to change careers. (USDOE) . Worse, almost 50 percent of newly hired teachers leave the profession after the first five years (NCTAF, 2003).

Supported by a mix of government and public funds, TAP was created in 1999 to respond to these challenges. Its goal, simply stated, is to recruit and retain good teachers, provide them opportunities to advance professionally, and offer them better pay.
Today, approximately 200 schools in 13 states have TAP in place. As part of the program, the days teachers used to devote to professional development have been replaced by daily 90-minute “cluster” meetings led by master teachers.

A recent study by the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching measured student achievement gains with TAP schools and teachers to non-TAP schools and teachers. Results show that in all TAP states, TAP teachers outperformed non-TAP teachers in producing an average year’s growth or more in their students’ achievement. The study also shows that more TAP schools outperformed non-TAP schools in producing an average year’s growth or more in both reading and math achievement.

In addition to raising student achievement, the study found that TAP teachers experience higher quality professional development as well as more support and collaboration than non-TAP teachers. TAP schools have also seen a reduction in teacher turnover rates, at the same time attracting new teachers from higher-income schools to teach in high-need schools.

Where state support is lacking, some groups have designed their own teacher advancement programs. One example is the CLASS Project run by Oregon’s Chalkboard Project. The CLASS Project was created by Oregon teachers with the goal of higher student achievement. Similar to TAP, the CLASS Project includes new roles for teachers as leaders and mentors, offering the opportunity of more pay.

Currently three school districts participate in the program, Forest Grove, Sherwood and Tillamook. The independent route of teacher professional development has become a viable option for those against mandated merit pay initiatives.

TEACHERS – Additional Facts:

There are currently 3,220,300 elementary and secondary public school teachers in the U.S.

The median age of teachers has risen from 33 in 1976 to the mid-40’s today, indicating that there are more teachers nearing retirement age, with fewer young new teachers to replace them. (NIET)

Secondary students in high-poverty schools are more likely than those in low-poverty schools to have a teacher who has not majored or even minored in the subject. (NIET)

36 percent of all secondary school teachers who teach math do not have certification or a major in math. Nearly 60 percent of chemistry, physics, earth and space science instructors do not have certification or a major in the subject. (NIET)

Average annual salary for elementary and secondary school teacher in 2007 – $47,950. (BLS)

Thirty-four states require that all teacher candidates hold content-specific bachelor’s degrees to receive certification. As of 2005, 15 states have no content area degree requirement in place. (USDOE)